This year will be known as a watershed moment in protecting women and babies from extreme abortion laws after the NSW Legislative Council rejected Greens MP, Mehreen Faruqi’s dangerous abortion bill today, according to the Australian Christian Lobby.

With Queensland early this year rejecting similar abortion-to-birth legislation, and the resounding rejection in NSW today, it is clear that the community is looking for better outcomes for women and the unborn,” ACL spokesperson for women, Wendy Francis said.

“This vote today is not only a win for women and unborn children in NSW but gives hope to the thousands of vulnerable women around Australia who have been let down by a system that ignores their cries for help when they are at their most vulnerable.”

The Abortion Law Reform (Miscellaneous Acts Amendment) Bill 2016 sought to make abortion legal up to birth, remove the rights of doctors to conscientiously object, and ban prayer vigils and sidewalk counselling outside abortion facilities or be subject to 12 months in prison or a $16,500 fine.

“The tide is turning against abortion as better technology gives people a deeper understanding of the development of a pre-born baby,” Ms Francis said.

In Queensland earlier this year, more than 55,000 people signed a petition while more than 3,000 marched in Brisbane against abortion. In addition, 2,700 submissions were presented to an inquiry with 80 per cent opposed to removing abortion safeguards.

Meanwhile, in NSW more than 2,000 pro-lifers marched early this year and more than 56,000 signed a petition that was tabled yesterday by Labor MLC Greg Donnelly.

Ms Francis said the NSW bill did not include any safeguards for women seeking abortion, nor did it require abortion practitioners to hold a medical qualification.

“Sex selective abortion - a practice traditionally used to discriminate against girls – would have been permitted, and the right of women to informed consent would have been completely ignored,” she said.

“Jaya Taki, the former partner of NRL player Tim Simona, who had an abortion after Simona told her the baby would ‘ruin his career’, played a prominent role in the bid to defeat the bill.

At an expert panel in Parliament House last week, Ms Taki said that, in addition to the obvious flaws in the bill, it’s passage would have validated those men “who do not value women and their children”.

“Furthermore, Ms Taki believes that the absence of a gestational limit imperilled women who use such limits to resist those who demand that they abort their babies.”

“Faruqi’s Bill was so extreme that it even made abortion advocates feel queasy.”